Assessment of acoustic comfort in university teaching spaces (Case Study)

The teaching and learning spaces are the main part of the success of the educational process in Universities. Where the acoustic performance affects the lecture halls. The internal acoustic factors are among the factors that hinder students and lecturers in the educational space alike. This paper presents a study regarding the effect of indoor acoustic on students' comfort in the educational space. This study was done on two adjacent spaces, the first space (S1) has wood cladding on brick walls, and the second space (S2) has brick walls only. The study stages are divided into two parts. The first part is to measure the intensity of the internal noise to model the distribution to obtain the current values. The second part is to model the state of the internal sound by using simulation programs. In addition to distributing the questionnaires simultaneously during the measurement period. Where the results indicate that the first space (S1) has a noise intensity in the range of 57 to 62 decibels, while the second space (S2) has a noise intensity in the range of 65 to 92 decibels and must be treated. Where 55 dB is the appropriate noise intensity for the acoustic standards of educational spaces. However, the survey results show that respondents feel comfortable with the current noise intensity level in these two spaces. Finally, these two approaches between Standard Survey and Questionnaire give a useful perspective for the designer to design a building. That not only improves the building's acoustical performance but also meets the needs of the building occupants.